Saturday, March 10, 2012

Blog Sale Week 2...

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Thank you so much for making last week's blog sale so much fun!! Here are a few more item for this week. Look through all the items below and EMAIL ME if you are interested. The comments section will be turned off for the sale to make it fair for all.

This is also a Linky Blog Sale, so if you'd like to sell a few of your items too, link below at the end of the post, where it says..."click here to enter"



Guidelines...
  • first come first serve through email only
  • I will turn OFF the comment section for the Blog Sale. I have many people who do not have a blog and end up commenting as anonymous which doesn't show their email address. I also have people who subscribe to this blog through email. Saying you want an item through "Email Only" makes it fair for all. Helps me with communication too. Guarantees me your email address not the dreaded No Reply
  • I will ship world wide
  • buyer pays shipping. I will only charge what it costs to ship to you according to your zip code
  • email communication will decide HOW you want it shipped (regular, priority etc)
  • I ship Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays
  • item will be shipped from Rhode Island
  • payments made through Paypal. I will send you Paypal Invoice after sale.
  • Just starting out with this Blog Sale idea, Paypal is the easiest for me and for you too. If you do not have a Paypal account, it's fabulous...safe, secure, easy and free if your are buying something. You can attach a credit card, bank account or debit card to your Paypal account. If you're still worried, open a separate bank account just for "fun" money...like shopping online. That way you won't worry about your regular bank account being involved. Paypal only charges ME a small fee for receiving the payment. They don't charge you anything for shopping. Look into it...it's worth it. CLICK HERE to a link to Paypal. I have no affiliation with them.

ITEM # 1

$25.00 plus shipping  SOLD THANK YOU!!

QUILT TOP ONLY...you will need to add your own batting, backing and quilting. Quilt top made by me with 100% cotton, prewashed fabric. 42 inches x 54 inches

Little boys nap quilt...trucks, race track border and little stop lights in each corner!







ITEM # 2

$10.00 plus shipping SOLD THANK YOU

SET OF 7 ACRYLIC QUILT TEMPLATES

I've had these for years, but never used them. Three of them still have the protective paper on them. Set comes with 4 handles that unscrew to be used on all the templates.






ITEM # 3

$5.00 plus shipping

Set of 4 "vintage" (1976, 1979, 1990) knitting and crocheting books. 3 books and 1 pamphlet. These were my mom's, I can see her little notes in one of the books.


ITEM # 4

$30.00 plus shipping SOLD THANK YOU

Scrappy Homespun quilt top made by me 5-6 years ago. Top only. This is a UFO (un finished object). You will need to add your own batting, backing and quilting. Perfect if you love to quilt and not piece. Made with 100% cotton, pre washed fabric from a smoke free home.

54 inches by 54 inches. The checkered border is all pieced with 1.5 inch squares. That's where the quilt ends. The fabric in the background is to hide my bookcase!





Thanks so much for stopping by...have fun "shopping".

If you would like to join in on the fun and sell some of your own items...click the linking party below.

Have a great day,
~Karen~

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Thoughts on Thursday...

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I LOVE food. That could be it for my Thought this Thursday, because I do love food...everything but liver!

However, my thoughts this Thursday are...

If I had to eat the same thing everyday, what would it be?

Of course, there wouldn't be the need to worry about calories or my health or anything like that! LOL

I think I would have to pick loaded Nachos...and I mean LOADED...meat, cheese, all the veggies, sour cream, guacamole etc

How about you?? Remember don't worry about your weight!! Not an issue when blogging.

Happy Thursday,
~Karen~

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Commenting, Anonymous, No Reply and Open ID...

Ok, sorry for the long title, but I knew one of those things might grab you and they are all in this post.

We all love comments on our blog, but there are some issues...
  • word verification is ridiculous now...can't read the word, takes several times, people give up
  • subscribing to email comments
  • what comment form box do we use at the end of our posts
  • who is allowed to leave a comment
  • if you allow anonymous you need the word verification, because you will get spammed to death with 50 emails a day trying to sell you Viagra and nude celebrity photos LOL !! Not kidding on that either. I got them EVERY day. I just turned off Anonymous users because of it. My choice was No Word Verification with No Anonymous Users or Yes to Word Verification and Yes to Anonymous. We all hate the verification now, so that's my only choice.
  • the dreaded "NO REPLY". I think this is my goal in life to rid the blogging world of No Replies!! What is "no reply" you ask? Here's a quick explanation. You have a blogger account, which you think has an email address attached to it. You read all your favorite blogs and leave comments every where, hoping someone will respond back to your comment. That blog author receives your comment in her inbox of her email and wants to respond, but your address is "No Reply"...no email address. How do you fix this. CLICK HERE for a quick tutorial on the simple fix. Even if you THINK your address is there, PLEASE check any way!!

Here is my fix for all the issues on my blog...we'll see how this goes once you read this post.

Before I start, I just want to send a suggestion to Blogger. Just have a spot in the comment section where people can type in their name and email address to leave a comment. Done!! Seems simple, but there must be a reason for it all

I want everyone to have a chance to comment. I know most people lurk and browse around, but if you do want to leave a comment, it shouldn't be a hassle. If you don't have a blogger account, most people leave a comment under Anonymous. The problem with that is, to block spam (garbage email from bad websites uses Anonymous to send things) we have to put Word Verification on. That is off for me now, so no anonymous.

Here is how to change those features.

Go to your dashboard and click SETTINGS...


Click on COMMENTS...


Now click the dot next to REGISTERED USERS (the red circled item below in the picture). This allows all Google, Live Journal, Typepad, Word Press AIM and Open ID.



I have a further explanation below of what OPEN ID is. This could help my Anonymous friends.


Now to turn off Word Verification just scroll down and check NO.



Another option is where to have your Comment Box show up in your post. I've changed mine after having a conversation with Debbie from Jerusalem Notes: Fiberwork by Debbie. Click Here to visit her great blog.

Debbie likes to "subscribe to comments". That means if she likes the conversations that are happening on a particular post, she can subscribe to that particular post of comments. She is then sent all the comments from that post. That way she doesn't have to keep going back to the post to see what everyone after her is saying.

Blogger had that feature on all types of comment boxes, but it seems it's only on the "Embedded Below the Post" one. See it circles below?


When your comment box is embedded below the post, there is an area to click on, on the bottom right that says..."subscribe by email"


Ok, last topic is OPEN ID instead of being ANONYMOUS!!

If you CLICK HERE, you can go to the Open ID website and read about it. Here is a quote from the site

"OpenID allows you to use an existing account to sign in to multiple websites, without needing to create new passwords."


On this page, you can see how to get an Open ID, use one you may already have, or how you can add the Open ID feature to a website you have yourself. However, Blogger already allows Open ID, so it's perfect..


Here are some of the websites that you may already have an account with that you can use to comment on a blog under the OpenID section.


Click here to see how to log in with an Open ID...



Ok, I know this was a lot of info, but it had to go into one post, because it all goes together.

Hope this will help some of you out there!

Have a great day,
~Karen~

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Monday, March 5, 2012

Tool Time Tuesday...Make Your Own Ironing Board



Happy Tuesday! Today's project is about how to make your own ironing board or ironing station and the "tool" of the day is a staple gun!!

Over the years, I've used a regular ironing board in my sewing room. They work great to adjust the height up and down, but the size of work surface is better for ironing clothing. I do like the feature of bringing the ironing board down low when I'm sewing at the sewing machine and need to press things quickly, but I do need a larger work surface. Larger areas are great for ironing larger pieces of fabric or quilt tops.

Here is my new ironing station!!


My friend Tabatha from work gave me this table. Hi Tabby! Thanks You!! I love the size...long, but narrow.


The first step to make an ironing board is to cover it with quilt batting. I used 2 layers of super thin batting. You can decide how thick you would want your own board.


Love my staple guns...I actually have 3 of them!!


For the batting, you just need to tack it down in a few places to start. Most of the stapling will be done when the fabric goes on.

Depending on your staple gun and the wood you are stapling into, some staples may not go in all the way.


Just tap them in with a hammer.


Just a few tacks here and there to hold it in place.


All covered.


Now for the fabric...I ironed my right on the table to start, because of the wrinkles from storing the fabric.




To make the fabric tight around the edges, I turned the table over to get good pressure on the staple gun. Staple all around and trim off excess fabric.


I stapled every 2 inches or so, pulling tight as I went along. I did have a pretty black and white fabric, but it had a specific directional pattern and it would drive me crazy if it were pulled more in one direction in the pattern. This smaller, all over print was better.


Pull corner fabric and staple the heck out of it!! LOL


All set and ready to go.


I have one of the rubber ironing pads.


Helps when you are ironing along and need to move fabric along, but just put the iron down for a second. Won't scortch the board.


This is long enough for 2 friends on a sewing day!! Tina, are you ready?


You can use any size table to make an ironing station fit your sewing room. Look for old tables in thrift stores, yard sales, from your family or maybe even in your own basement. You might have something that you don't know what to do with because you don't like the way it looks. Perfect...cover it up and make an ironing board out of it!!

Happy ironing,
~Karen~

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Sunday, March 4, 2012

A Comment That Touched Me...

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Blogging...why do we do it? There must be hundreds of individual reasons why we each blog, but some things that come to my mind are...sharing, inspiration, connecting with others, making friends etc.

I think most of us start out in the blogging world by reading other blogs. Then we "lurk" for a while...stopping by and enjoying each post, but not really making ourselves known. Then it happens...we open a blogging account to becoming a follower on blogs and the opportunity to comment. Comments are what make the blogging world go round. Comments equal connections.

Then some of us take the next step by starting a blog. Now "WE" want the followers, the comments and the connections for our own blog. We write that first post, then the next. We share and take time...lots of time...writing tutorials, baking recipes, sharing thoughts and pictures, but we need that "connection" to others to make it all feel worth while.

About 2 weeks ago I did a post on Your Blog Likes and Dislikes...CLICK HERE if you want to read that post. It was very popular with 111 comments. I just received another comments on that post a few days ago. Most people don't go back and read comments that are left on an older post, so I wanted to share it with you today.

This comment was left by Daryl from the blog Patchouli Moon Studio. The letter that she wrote touched me so much, I emailed her and asked if I could share the comment and her blog in a post.

Here is the comment she left...

"I stumbled onto your blog and I pretty much agree with you and the comments posted about what makes a good blog. I have 2 blogs and after 5 years, I rarely received any comments at all from anyone, except a personal friend of mine, that I finally just recently turned off the comments altogether. I found it depressing that no one wanted to say anything to me at all. I see so many blogs that have so many readers that comment that I couldn't understand why I wasn't getting any,so I just decided that I was doing my blog for me first and if I had no place for comments then I couldn't get depressed about not receiving any. I do have an email button so if anyone wants to ask me something or comment that way they certainly can contact me.

I feel like I do pretty much all the right things that were mentioned by you and others on my blogs and I've done so from the start. I see blogs that are too cluttered and try to sell way too much and that is a huge turn off for me. I have no online store so I have less clutter on my blog than most blogs. So many blogs are created as a business to sell something or link to their online store and if they don't have a reason for me to return to their blog then I don't.

I had a tutorial blog that I just recently deleted too. I only did tutorials on that blog because I thought it would be a good thing. Well it was time consuming to create even the simplest tutorial, and I had so few hits on that blog after a few years, and no one made a comment that I wondered if anyone even cared at all? I decided if I wanted to do tutorials I would do them on my blog and not a separate blog as maybe that was the problem?

I find too that most people tend to be what they call "lurkers" where they visit a blog but never comment or even sign up to follow the blog. I have so few "followers" that sign up on my blogs. I know people look because of the counter I have, but I guess I don't know what makes some people follow a blog and not follow another one, except for the reasons stated by you here and by others, which like I said I feel like I have been doing all along. Oh well,I blog because I enjoy it. "


We've ALL been there at some point...waiting for a comment or a click of the follow button. What does it take? Like Daryl says..."I don't know what it takes for someone to follow a blog and not follow another one".

Sometimes I thinks it just takes a chance. A "chance" meeting of someone, a "chance" for someone else to share, a "chance" click that leads to another click and there you are on a different blog. We all just need a "chance".

Well, here's my chance to share a new blog with, so Daryl can have a chance to connect with you through her comments.

CLICK HERE to visit Patchouli Moon Studio. OMG you will not be disappointed. Daryl is a Jane of all Trades and a Master of them ALL. I went though her blog and let me tell you, she does it ALL.

She quilts...


Hand quilts


Decorates her new sewing room...


Sews beautiful bags...


Makes her own baskets...


Lots of mug rugs...


and boy does she knit!!


She MADE this!!...


and this cutie.


She even dyes her own yarn...


I could go on and on, but you will see what I mean. Fabulous!!

Go for a visit and get lost in her blog. I told her to open up her comment section again. I know all of you are the best blogging friends ever and will not disappoint.

She better get ready!! LOL

Ah, blogging. I love it. A new friend and new inspiration...nothing better!

Take care,
~Karen~

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